Page 1195 - les-miserables

two words,— ‘fifteen years.’ She had wonderful brown hair,
shaded with threads of gold, a brow that seemed made of
marble, cheeks that seemed made of rose-leaf, a pale flush,
an agitated whiteness, an exquisite mouth, whence smiles
darted like sunbeams, and words like music, a head such
as Raphael would have given to Mary, set upon a neck that
Jean Goujon would have attributed to a Venus. And, in or-
der that nothing might be lacking to this bewitching face,
her nose was not handsome— it was pretty; neither straight
nor curved, neither Italian nor Greek; it was the Parisian
nose, that is to say, spiritual, delicate, irregular, pure,—
which drives painters to despair, and charms poets.
When Marius passed near her, he could not see her eyes,
which were constantly lowered. He saw only her long chest-
nut lashes, permeated with shadow and modesty.
This did not prevent the beautiful child from smiling as
she listened to what the white-haired old man was saying to
her, and nothing could be more fascinating than that fresh
smile, combined with those drooping eyes.
For a moment, Marius thought that she was another
daughter of the same man, a sister of the former, no doubt.
But when the invariable habit of his stroll brought him, for
the second time, near the bench, and he had examined her
attentively, he recognized her as the same. In six months the
little girl had become a young maiden; that was all. Nothing
is more frequent than this phenomenon. There is a moment
when girls blossom out in the twinkling of an eye, and be-
come roses all at once. One left them children but yesterday;
today, one finds them disquieting to the feelings.

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